The Shout Out Louds bright pop, stealth tour hits Boston

Sunday

Nov 5, 2017 at 4:52 PMNov 5, 2017 at 7:00 PM

Stockholm's Shout Out Louds continue to churn out bright and danceable pop-rock, and their brand new album “Ease My Mind” is another refreshing collection from the Swedish quintet. The band's 90-minute show Saturday night at Brighton Music Hall proved that their tunes are both melodically compelling, their rhythms still intoxicating, and their arrangements frequently intriguing [...]

jaymiller

Stockholm's Shout Out Louds continue to churn out bright and danceable pop-rock, and their brand new album “Ease My Mind” is another refreshing collection from the Swedish quintet.

The band's 90-minute show Saturday night at Brighton Music Hall proved that their tunes are both melodically compelling, their rhythms still intoxicating, and their arrangements frequently intriguing for their complexity. The joyfully kinetic drive of the band's second encore tune, “Porcelain,” demonstrated how superior their music is to most of what we hear on the charts these days, and the crowd danced and hopped around as the guitar textures and bubbling keyboard accents built an enticing musical stew.

But this tour stop seemed to come and go with a minimum of publicity, and for the band, which had been snapped up Capitol Records in the U.S. shortly after their debut produced a bunch of hit singles in Sweden and the United Kingdom, the Saturday night audience of about 120 gleeful fans had to be a bit disappointing. On their 2013 tour, after their previous album, “Optica” the Shout Out Louds had played the larger Paradise Rock Club, and drawn perhaps four times as many fans. The new album was released on the independent Merge Records label on September 22, and it is a fine new installment in the quintet's music, but clearly the group's promotional operation needs a boost.

The Shout Out Louds began in 2001 in Stockholm, when singer/guitarist Adam Olenius, bassist Ted Malmros, and guitarist Carl von Arbin decided to start a band. Their first efforts were done with a drum machine, but in short order Eric Edman joined as a real live drummer, and Bebban Stenborg joined on keyboards. In the first blush of their celebrity, after Capitol had picked up their debut and re-released it Stateside, the quintet opened tours for The Kings of Leon, and The Strokes among others.

There's a definite 1980′s dance-pop vibe to The Shout Out Louds' music, and when we last saw them in 2013, we had compared them to INXS, although in an interview back then, Olenius offered that he felt the band was most heavily influenced by The Smiths.

Their music has flirted with the singles charts in the U.S., but had more consistent success in their native land and in the United Kingdom. 2004′s “Please Please Please” and 2005′s “The Comeback” both enjoyed wide popularity near the top of the charts in the U.K. for instance. But the best the band has done in U.S. so far has been “Impossible,” which hit #15 on the pop singles charts in 2008, and “Tonight I Have to Leave It,” which hit #8 in that same year. Obviously, raising the band's profile here in one prime objective in this latest 16-date U.S. tour, which began on Halloween night.

The Shout Out Louds did four of the song from the new album in Saturday's 16-song set. The insistent love song “Paola” might be one of the new CD's best, with rhythmic intensity yet a delectable melody, and poetic lyrics about growing up and forging your own way, and it opened the show. A bit later the soaring laidback groove of “Jumbo Jet” crafted a nice dreamscape, but the night really began to catch fire with the bright pop and fiery drum figures behind “Sugar.” Stenborg's artfully weird keyboard accents really gave “Walking In Your Footsteps” a surreal air, and her contributions, working both with and against the guitars, always give the sound an otherworldly feel.

It was easy to see how “The Comeback” became so popular in Europe, as Saturday's version contrasted pounding rock rhythms with a buttery main melody, with Stenborg's lines almost sneaking in underneath. The slower tempo of “Souvenirs,” from the new CD, had Stenborg creating a droning organ foundation, over muted marching drum figures, as Olenius evocatively mused about romantic doubt with lines like “Is it just in my mind?…”

But that ballad interlude was followed by the tumbling drums, and Olenius banging on cowbell, for the vibrant dance-rock of “Tonight I Have to Leave It.” Chiming guitars built a lengthy intro for “Hard Rain,” another irresistible pop groove. Staccato drum figures were the underpinning for the lovely melody and three-part vocal harmonies floating over the room during “Walls.” The regular set finale of “Please Please Please” suggested British pop with its undeniable buoyant flow.

The three-song encore segment began with just Olenius and Stenborg on stage for the start of “Go Sadness,” but just as the song shifted from ennui to bouncy optimism the rest of the band reappeared to turn it into a sweeping rocker. Saturday's version of “Porcelain” was just a few degrees short of a roadhouse rocker, with hypnotic guitar lines, those quirky keyboard accents, superb vocal harmony from Olenius, Malmros and von Arbin, and an impassioned lead vocal from Olenius–if there is a hit single from the new album, this would be our pick. The night ended with Stenborg's keys creating a steel drum-like sound for the soar

The Shout Out Louds from Sweden, in the midst of a 16-date U.S. tour, played Boston Saturday night

ing pop-rock of “Impossible,” which morphed into a giant singalong by the song's end.